Again, damage features and here it can be even more of a burden as cars hurtle around the track trying to keep their speed up. We have a few seconds to get our speed back up thankfully, and it’s here that the boost comes in handy. Each checkpoint passed ups the lower limit, and by the final lap things get tough as even drifting around a corner will drop us just under the limit. As I keep saying, this mode is brilliant fun, offering up a neat twist on the pure racing of the Arcade mode.ĭrive or Explode has us racing Speed-style, meaning that if our speed drops below a determined amount we will blow up. The winner is either the first person across the line with the most cash, or – most likely – the last man standing. Both this and the latter Drive or Explode mode feature damage to the cars (though it is just a life bar rather than anything that’ll affect handling), and once depleted we respawn as a Cop to try and take the remaining robbers down. First, we have Cops and Robbers as the name implies, players need to complete 3 laps of a track and collecting money at each checkpoint while avoiding being taken down by a Police vehicle. There are also single races to play that offer up a couple of additional modes. My young children were enjoying playing, but that timer meant they were often out before they’d even finished the first lap.Įach championship can be played with up to four players, which is – as always – even more fun as we bash and shove each other both in game and in real life. ![]() I’d perhaps have liked an option to turn this off for single races though. An arcade-style timer between checkpoints ratchets up the tension, each crash or knock costing valuable seconds. There are no power ups, no item pick-ups or short cuts, just you, a fleet of rivals and some well-designed tracks to contend with. I haven’t had this much pure fun in a racer since the days of Daytona USA and Outrun 2. Again though, utilising the drift even at this speed means we can fly around bends and turns as easy as anything. Slipstreaming or drifting builds up a boost meter that is split into four chunks once one is full, a tap of A sends the car careening down the track at some speed. It gives the racing a bit of a scrappy feeling, and it’s something that I loved about Hotshot Racing. The AI are aggressive as anything, taking no hesitation in smashing into us to get around a corner, or pushing us into a hazard. It’s just simple enough to play, yet it’s not also going to take it easy on us. On the lower difficulty I had no issue navigating hairpin after hairpin while jostling for position with the AI cars. The racing itself is incredibly fun, throwing back to earlier titles in its approach to handling chucking the car around the corner while tapping the brake sends us into some epic powerslides that look cool as shit while also still being fun to control. Again, they only unlock visual customisation options, but they are a neat way to encourage us to play with each car and racer, as well as alter our style slightly to succeed. ![]() My personal favourite was Keiko, and it pays to stick to one as there are challenges associated with each driver and car that unlock new aesthetic customisation options some require us to drift for 5 seconds in one go, while others are spread out over many races such as boost 20 times in a race, or drift for 100 seconds total in each car. There are a handful of racers, each with 4 cars, to choose from featuring slightly differing abilities when it comes to acceleration, drift, or top speed, but that’s it. Hotshot Racing takes its arcade inspiration to heart – we have a selection of championships to compete in, each with 4 tracks and 3 difficulty modes. There’s still the occasional lighter-hearted take of course, and Hotshot Racing takes that idea and runs with it coming across as a mix between Outrun and Virtua Racing, the wizards at Sumo Digital and Lucky Mountain have created an excellent throwback to a simpler time, where just the joy of throwing a car around a track was enough, without needing to worry about tyre wear or suspension limits. From the early days of Gran Turismo through to the spectacular Forza series of modern day, it’s clear that much of the focus is on a more sim-style approach to racing. Racing games have gotten more and more in depth as time has gone on.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |